Thursday, May 20, 2010

Frontier Feminism

Conservative female columnists have gone gaga over Sarah Palin. She's a "conservative" feminist...aka a "pro-life feminist" that still believes women were oppressed by men, didn't have "equal rights" and that suffrage and the social engineering that has propelled women en masse into what was once the male sphere of gender roles are all still "good" things.

Left wing, or right wing, "feminism" is still an ideology of female pedestalization....female superiority. It promotes the same myths of female "Strength and independence."

One "conservative feminist," Townhall columnist Maggie Ghallagher, wrote about a recent Palin speech she attended, in a column entitled Sarah Palin's Girl Power:

Palin understands that she is building not just a new political movement, but a new cultural identity. She dubbed it "frontier feminism," and it was the theme she carried through from beginning to end.

Well isn't that special. Palin is not just a feminist...she's a FRONTIER FEMINIST.

She speaks emotionally as a mother, from the heart of motherhood, and she makes it what it should be: a source of power, not an admission of weakness or dependency, and a bond, the deepest bond among women.

See..."conservative" women are no different. The appeal of herd bonding through the sharing of emotional experience is a "source of power." Note how dependency is associated with weakness.

This association is precisely how the feminists appealed to the solipsism of the female mind to get them to embrace the ideological platform to destroy the dynamics of the Patriarchal nuclear family.

Sickening. Oh Maggie, you are just as much the useful idiot for feminist's goals as any left wing abortion fanatic.

Marriage is supposed to be a partnership...and what is a partnership but a relationship based on CO-DEPENDENCY? Where one partner is weak the other partner's strength meets the need. That's a complementary relationship! Dependency is a hallmark of any successful relationship...not a weakness.

Maggie than quotes a particular passage from Palin:

And I thank the SBA List, too, for being a home to a new conservative feminist movement, is how I look at this. It's an emerging conservative feminist identity. Far too long, when people heard the word 'feminist,' they thought of the faculty lounge at some East Coast women's college, right? And no offense to them, they have their opinions and their voice, and God bless them; they're just great."

Do Pro-Life conservatives get that? Palin says the left wing, abortion supporting, left wing feminists are just great!

"But that's not the only voice of women in America. I'd like to remind people of another feminist tradition, kind of a western feminism. It's influenced by the pioneering spirit of our foremothers, who went in wagon trains across the wilderness, and they settled in homesteads. And these were tough, independent pioneering mothers, whose work was as valuable as any man's on the frontier. ... They went where no woman had gone before."

How in holy hell was a pioneer woman a "feminst" tradition? I must have missed reading about all those women that INDEPENDENTLY braved the travails of settling the wild west. This is pure, revisionist bullshit by Palin. And so-called "conservative" women eat this shit up.

Tough? Hell yes. The pioneer women were indeed tough...they had to be. But "independent?"

Hardly.

The pioneer women were absolutely dependent on their men...just as the men were dependent on their women! It was a tough, rigorous and dangerous life...and each played their role in building a new life so that their next generation could succeed. IT TOOK BOTH MEN AND WOMEN WORKING TOGETHER TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE IN THE HARSH ENVIRONMENT OF THE FRONTIER.

The right wing version of feminism is just as subversive as the left. Note that the implications of Palin's line of thought is just as divisive of men and women as any left wing version of feminism. After all, isn't this the logical conclusion of the idea of "Independence?" An "independent" woman doesn't need a man. Hah.

Maggie than summarizes Palin's speech, while quoting an especially egregious line Palin used:

A speech that began with women as "mama grizzlies" defending their children's economic interests ("My kid is not your ATM") ends with a call for a new kind of feminism:

My kid is not your ATM?!?!??!??!?!?!?!?!

That's right....Palin, why don't you just go ahead and say it...that you agree with your left wing sisters (they're great! God bless them!) YOU, the unfortunate sperm donor for MY kid is MY ATM. Child support for 18 years BAAAYYYYBBBBEEEE!

"As an Alaskan woman, I'm proud to consider myself a frontier feminist like those early pioneering women of the West."

LMAO. Why yes Sarah...your 21st century experiences in Alaska, your experiences are JUST LIKE what those frontier women of the West!

She proceeded to thank one of the largest and most effective pro-life organizations in the country, the Susan B. Anthony List, named for a key 19th-century leader who opposed abortion. "I'm grateful to have a place like this, full of sisters who are not put off by a gun-toting, pro-life mom of a fun, full family -- never dull."

Ah yes. Now "conservative" women are hailing that wonderful Susan B. Anthony, the primary change-agent to institute women's suffrage. Just because she was "anti-abortion" means Susan B. Anthony is an "acceptable" feminist icon for "conservative" women.

She blamed men, laws and the "double standard" for driving women to abortion because they had no other options. ("When a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is a sign that, by education or circumstances, she has been greatly wronged." 1869) She believed, as did many of the feminists of her era, that only the achievement of women's equality and freedom would end the need for abortion.

Hahahaha...the jokes on you, Susan! We have more abortion now than you probably ever thought possible in your time...but I'm sure, now, just as back than, this is all the fault of "men," right?

But I digress...

Back to Maggie Gallagher's finishing paragraph:

Women can do anything.

Right. Try writing your name in the snow with your piss.

We can bear children under less than ideal circumstances.

Hilarious. When you are pregnant, your biological directive will make you go into labor whether the circumstances are ideal or not. This is like being proud of the fact that women can take a shit in less than ideal circumstances. GIRL POWER!

But Maggie's last line is a real hoot:

Like Sarah and her "strong and independent" daughter Bristol.

Why yes....she's so strong and independent, she's still living at home with mommy and daddy helping to raise her little kid...and her parent's are filing a lawsuit to get Bristol's baby's daddy to pay child support. Now THERE'S strength and independence for you!

"2010," Sarah Palin announced exuberantly, is the year "when commonsense conservative women get things done for our country."

Frontier Feminism and commonsense are an oxymoron...and Sarah Palin, you are no "conservative."

6 comments:

I'm glad you covered this. I read the article earlier and thought about blogging on it, but I have been a bit heavy on this matter lately.

RE: Bristol. I read in a USA Weekend insert that she is doing clerical type work in a medical office while she struggles the single mom life. Something like that. You know the sob story. BUT then I see the news about her getting up to $30,000 a pop to give speeches. So I think now that whole office story was just a sympathy getter for all the single moms. IF she is getting that much for speaking, oh the nerve then to demand child support!

RE: Susan B. Anthony. That whole thing is a joke too. Right, just cause she makes one anti-abortion statement that then erases everything else she stood for.

RE: frontier women. Right like she has a clue. She may be from Alaska and hunts, etc, but at the end of the day she comes home to a cushy big house.

All of this just reinforces my belief that if you are going to be against feminism, you have to be against ALL of it. Anything that smells close has to be rejected. I find this all very fascinating watching all these conservative women get caught up in a whirlwind. It really is a sheep mentality.

She speaks emotionally as a mother, from the heart of motherhood, and she makes it what it should be: a source of power, not an admission of weakness or dependency, and a bond, the deepest bond among women.

I am not really agreeing with the opposite of weakness being power.

See, motherhood is a source of strength (just as fatherhood is).

Strength acts by itself. You are strong. For you.

Power, now that is different. Power acts on others.

So, by saying "kids as source of power", 1. Kids are immediately relegated to being weapons/ammunition2. A need to exert power over others is stated3. A strong being just for the sake of a good existence is negated, a meaningful existence is assumed to be one where one has power over others.

To recap: strength exists as a state of being, power exists only when exerted.

I find this an interesting insight into the modern female's world view.

I don't think I have yet done a post exclusivly on Anthony. I started one after I watched a documentary on her and Stanton(I should finish it):

Anyway here are some interesting tidbits from my draft:

1. Stanton's father had four sons who all died young. He often told her that he wished she could have been a boy. The rest of her youth was spent trying to be like boys in order to gain her father's admiration. Her mother fell into such a deep depression from the loss of so many children that for the most part Stanton grew up without much motherly influence.

Doesn't that just say it all! How much childhood issues come into play.

2. Stanton was the first to strike "obey" from her marriage vows and the first to keep her maiden name.

3. Anthony was a teacher for 10 years at which point she became 'discontent' (there's that word again!). She saw she only had 3 options: 1. continue teaching; 2. be a wife; 3. be an oldmaid.

What's wrong with the first two, jeez!

She particularly detested the wife option as if you were a poor wife you were considered a drudge. Your life was a drudgery of housework. If you were rich wife, you were petted and dottled over.

Can't win with these women.

4. Elizabeth had seven children and she raised them with no spankings, didn't believe in waking them up in the morning because she thought they could structure themselves, and also did not believe in going to church.